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Maybe many are still confused how to pronounce the name of this volcano, Mt. Eyjafjallajokull. The eruption of Mt. Eyjafjallajokull has disrupted air travel once again. The volcano re-erupted and a change of winds caused an ash cloud to prevent air travel again. Luckily for travelers this time around it was only overnight and not for days. There’s chatter that this volcano may erupt all over again, leading to delays in flights yet again. If it is in any way achievable, I would recommend not flying into any regions affected by this volcano until it is certain that there won’t be any more activity with the volcano.

“Suppose I asked “why are diamonds very hard but butter is very soft?” and you answered “diamond and butter are both made out of atoms; the atoms of diamonds are hard and the atoms of butter are soft.” You would have begged the question; your answer to my question “why are some things hard and some things soft” is “because some things are made out of stuff that is hard and some things are made out of stuff that is soft” – that is, you’ve avoided answering the question by providing an “explanation” that itself cannot be understood without answering the original question – namely, why is some stuff hard and some stuff soft? This pseudo-explanation has no predictive power; it doesn’t tell us anything new, it just circles back on itself. The explanatory assumption – that some atoms are hard and some atoms are soft – is stronger than the thing we are trying to investigate – the hardness and softness of two substances.”

I know not only a few but a actually a lot of young people here in Switzerland that do not accept these regulations once more from America and therefore say, they will not travel to the US any more and telling me that America is kind of an “unwanted country”. They have the mindset that America is on one’s high horse. So I think as well this will have major drawbacks to the U.S. over the time. The reputation of the U.S. already not the best and getting worst for not only a few people here.

The whole situation in the U.S. with so called “Security Issues” (what clearly solves non of these security issues but sounds like they do something against terrorism; in the world of IT this concept is called “Security by obsurity”) reminds me to some Hollywood movies. Do you remember “Equilibrium” or “Brazil”? Think America is moving fast into this direction…

I even got a nice response. We agree to disagree … could have been worse.

“Marco,

“I am glad and surprized to hear that you are willing to agree to disagree. Let freedom ring:

““In vain would that man claim tribute to patriotism, who seeks to subvert these(religion & morality)greatest pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.”- George Washington

UPDATE: Aaron McGruder, writer of the comic strip the Boondocks, has been under attack for some of the views expressed in his strip in the last few weeks. He’s even been censored in a lot of newspapers because he’s not “standing behind a unified country.” His latest strips are a pretty thinly veiled attempt to do just that (Wednesday and Thursday).